It’s another killer whale attack off the Portuguese coast. This time, it happened in Sines, the sailboat sank and the Portuguese Navy was called to coordinate the rescue of the five crew members. In its statement, the Navy does not give details about what happened, it only speaks of a “sailboat sunk after interaction with killer whales.”
The five rescued people were in the life raft “after the sailboat they were on sank after encountering orcas, about 6 miles, the equivalent of 11 kilometers, from Sines,” explains the same statement.
the gangall Portuguese, They were rescued by the fishing vessel “Festas André”, which was nearby. “The Maritime Search and Rescue Coordination Center (MRCC) in Lisbon received contact from the sailboat at 00:03 it was pouring water, after an encounter with killer whales. The fishing vessel “Festas André”, which carried out the rescue of the 5 elements, and a boat from the Sines Lifeguard Station were immediately compromised. who accompanied the fishing boat to the port of Sines, where it docked safe and sound at 2:43 am.”
There are rules that must be followed when seeing killer whales, and the Navy takes the opportunity to remind them of them in its note published on the official Facebook page. “THE The interaction with these mammals is mainly due to the curious behavior of the juvenile killer whales, which, attracted by the mobile and noisy structures of the boats, such as the rudder and the propeller, can get too close to the boats and hit the mobile structures, with the probability of total or partial rupture of the rudder.”
A) Yes, in case of orca sighting, it is recommended to turn off the engine, “to inhibit the rotation of the propeller, and immobilize the rudder door, thus discouraging the interaction of these mammals with the mobile structures of the boats.”
Last summer, The Observer reported a sighting of killer whales, also in Sines, which concerned the director of CascaiSea, a Cascais-based marine protection organization, as the mammals were interacting with a boat next to the red buoy to guard the port jetty. Miguel Lacerda, a professional diver, said on Facebook that this behavior is strange “when the rudder is no longer just the focus of attention for killer whales”. Other similar episodes were recorded along the Alentejo coast and in Spain, on the coast of Galicia and in the Mediterranean, not only with killer whales, but especially with whales.
Source: Observadora
